


The Minus One Series

by Kearatheshadow



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coma, Coping, Established Relationship, Hospitals, M/M, Multi, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kearatheshadow/pseuds/Kearatheshadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For JEM week days 1-6. </p><p>Winter is harsher when the holidays loose their cheer in the wake of tragedy, and Eren and Jean must try and adjust to being on their own while their lover recovers. It's a waiting game now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Movies

Part One: Jean

Marco had this thing about home movies.

It might’ve had something to do with the huge family he had. Eren had gotten into it instantly, since his memory was so bad, and together they tormented Jean with picture after picture and little movies about anything and everything even remotely special. Jean jokes that Marco should’ve become a film major instead, with amount of memories Jean has of him holding a camera.

Jean holds the camera now, the last entry from a week ago, when they were driving to Mikasa’s apartment to spend Thanksgiving. He sees himself from Marco’s point of view, his own offended face glancing at the camera from where he was being assaulted in the drivers seat. Eren’s in shotgun, cackling as he flashes a smile towards Marco.

Marco goes through his usual repertoire of questions, asking the date, what they’re doing and how they’re feeling. The video becomes blurry as Eren snatches the camera away, focusing on Marco’s face instead and doing a snarky imitation of their boyfriend.

Jean scrubs the tears off his face and pauses the video, setting up for a new one and placing it on a tripod he set up in the living room. He turns it on, and sits down on the couch, watching the red light blink.

“Uh, hi Marco.” Jean stops himself, over-thinking what he was supposed to say. “Today is the first of December—” His voice cracks up an octave. He swallows and tries again, shifting uncomfortably as stupid light continues blinking. 

“Its been two days since you’ve been in a coma… The doctors say you’re stable, and now its just waiting for the swelling in your brain to go down but I— its just waiting now. I’ve walked the hallways of the hospital so many times I could probably draw them from memory."

He pauses, knowing that if he starts to ramble he'll never stop. "Eren’s doing ok, you know him and hospitals. He’s at Mikasa’s now, and doesn’t know I’m doing this, but I’ll probably tell him later before he gets too mad at me. It's _our_ thing, the three of us, but I think he really needs her and Armin now though, now that we know it’s… gonna be ok.”

He says the last few words slowly, deliberately, very firmly, curling his fingers into the couch beneath him. “It’s g-gonna be ok and I wanted to keep doing your stupid home videos so when you did wake up you’d know what you missed.”

Jean clenches his jaw, the silence heavy in their empty apartment, and remembers to breathe. “It’s been hard, I don’t think either of us have really accepted that it happened. Our car's basically gone, the other driver in court-- Our bosses gave us time off thankfully, and all your coworkers are planning to send you flowers or something if— when, _when you wake up_.” Jean panics at his own slip up, reaching forward to almost touch the power button. He keeps himself from pressing it, trying to figure out how to end the video quickly enough before he starting crying on camera.

He ends up giving the camera a small smile, wondering if it looked as forced as it felt. “I’ll probably do more later, but not a lot ok? Not right now. Please—” Jean shut his mouth, unsure of what he was even asking _for._

He plastered the smile back onto his face. “We love you Marco. Goodnight.”

It was terrible, he knew it was terrible and Jean shuts off the camera and brings it closer before he can embarrass himself further.

Just as Jean was debating whether or not to delete it altogether and pretend it never happened, their apartment door opens and Jean is caught by Eren-- who gives him and the tripod a curious look. After a heartbeat he holds up the giant paper bag in his hand.

“I brought Thai. From that really fancy place you love. What--” Eren chokes on his words as he zeros in on the camera, and Jean decides that staring at the floor is far easier than meeting his boyfriends eyes.

Eren sets down the bag slowly, and walks up to him, reaching up to wipe his tear stained cheeks. Instead of batting away his hands, Jean leans into them and they both look down at the camera in his hands.

“Where’d you find that?” It wasn't as accusatory as he thought it would be.

“Our room. Made a thing for Marco.”

Jean heard him give a small laugh. “Is that why you looked so guilty when I walked in?”

“I wasn’t _guilty_ asshole.”

“Yes you were, it was all over your face.”

Jean ducked his head a little more, trying to hide his smile. “Thank you for the Thai.”

Eren’s hands leave his face to wrap him in a hug instead, holding Jean tight to him. His voice is raspier than normal. “I’ll accept your thank-you if you buy me pizza tomorrow.”

"But no one likes your shitty sausage and peppers but you."

"Exactly, you can have leftover Thai." 

Jean buries his face in Eren’s collar, the hand not holding the camera resting on Eren’s lower back.

“After… can we make a movie thing together?”

“Deal.”


	2. Stockings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter seems to last forever.

Part Two: Eren

Jean hates Christmas. Eren knows this because he said so: loudly, to an overly cheery Mall Santa, and quietly, whispered into Eren’s neck in the darkened room of the hospital’s private sector.

Eren tries his best, he really does, but Eren’s not even Christian, nor particularly festive— he’d gone so many holidays mourning someone that his huge fake grin can’t even fool strangers anymore. But Marco and Jean both celebrate Christmas, and Eren tries anyway, even though he hates it just as much as Jean does.

The hate Eren holds is a different kind of hate, the one you hold under a smile and take out in punching bags and struggle to hit the right notes in a carol without crying. Eren clutches to the few people he has left to get him through the next few weeks, the fresh wound to an old scar making the pain familiar as the stockings they made for each other for a fireplace they didn’t have.

This is the first year Jean felt loss though, and he hates the holidays for it. He’s not used to the pain, even now; Eren can see it in the circles under his eyes, the hollow greetings and the flashes of tears that come and go like the snowflakes that melt the moment they leave the air. 

The shock had settled in, it had been a day, the two, then a week. This was the third week, and Marco still wasn’t awake.

It was Christmas Eve.

Eren’s been counting the days until Jean inevitably snaps, until he trips up in his daily routine and comes to the full realization of what life will be like if Marco never wakes up, and Jean’s mental floodgates break. Eren’s gone through it enough to know what its like.

He’d just been watching Jean so closely he forgot to take care of himself. 

So when Jean comes home from the hospital, ignoring the third call from his mother, he finds the boxes from storage piled high in their kitchen, their living room red and green and gold and warm, and Eren staring at the blank space of wall to the left of their tree, tears running down his face.

Eren hears him walk over, and feels Jean wrapping his arms around him, and knows that they’re both staring at the patch of wall, and that he’s waiting for an explanation.

“I’m too short to reach the h-hooks,” he finally chokes out. “M-Marco’s the only one t-that can reach them.” 

Jean makes a noise from behind him, something soft and understanding and pained, and gently tugs the stockings out of his hands, herding him away from the living room and towards their bedroom instead.

They stay in bed the rest of the night, just holding each other, and Eren’s thanked for decorating with small kisses and quiet tears and watery smiles.

The next time Eren sees the stockings, its Christmas Day and Jean’s hanging them from the end of the hospital bed, telling the kind nurse in short, brave sentences how much Marco loves Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Questions? Polite Criticism? Rude Complaints? Fun Facts you made up?  
> Find me at kearatheshadow.tumblr.com.


	3. Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wants to be your friend on Christmas

Part Three: Jean

It’s Christmas when Jean hears Eren sing for the first time in weeks. Eren used to always sing, every chance he could, convinced that if he didn’t, he’d forget every song and lullabye his mother ever taught him. 

It’s been twenty years since she died, and Eren still knows every word.

The songs are in Turkish, and even after countless small lessons in the language, Jean swears he still can’t understand a damn thing, but that's not entirely true either-- feelings are universal. 

This song is different that most of the ones Eren knows, a melody not spoiled by constant use— longer, softer, sadder than any lullabye Jean had heard before.

Eren thinks he’s gone, in the midst of leaving to go get dinner from the cafeteria. It had been closed, and now Jean was hovering outside in the hallway trying to remember how to breathe through the tears that cloud his vision all too often nowadays.

They have their own private room now, in a series of private rooms sparsely decorated with sterile smiles and colorful fake cheer. Jean watches the people go by, some genuinely happy that they have this time, others bringing the cold winter storm with them.

A nurse passes, for once taking in the situation and not actively pretending that it’s not happening. Jean recognizes her, a woman that had been there from the beginning, apparently a underling under Eren’s father.

She brings him a cup of water, and a small hersey kiss from the nurse's station, and sits down on the bench next to him. He cries, and they listen, and Eren sings soft songs of loss, and it almost covers the steady beeping of the machines from inside. He's quiet, considerate of the other patients in the ward, and Jean almost wishes he could bottle the sound up for future use.

She leaves after a few minutes, her pager alerting her on her hip. She leaves with a faint “Merry Christmas” and it's only after she's gone that Jean remembers that she doesn’t even work in this part of the hospital.

Eventually, Eren stops singing, and Jean enters the room again, closing the door behind him. He sinks down into the chair next to Eren’s and Eren takes his hand to play with his fingers. “You didn’t bring me anything? Rude.”

Jean smiles and holds out the hershey kiss. “Was closed. Brought ya this instead.”

“Wow, you really shouldn’t have.” Eren deadpanned, but he took it anyway unwrapping it slowly, Jean’s hand still held hostage. “Then what took you so long?”

“Listening to you.” Eren looks at him, and Jean noticed that his eyes were red. He imagined his were the same. “I’ve missed you singing.”

Eren looks away, placing the chocolate in his mouth deliberately so he wouldn’t have to answer. Jean’s hand was still caught in Eren’s, and he rubbed his thumb over dark skin soothingly.

It was late, and the nurse shift changed again, someone coming in and out, barely giving them a glance. They would have to leave soon.

“Remember that time we had to watch one of Marco’s baby cousins and the three of us had absolutely no idea how to make him stop crying so we were playing rounds of ‘pass the baby stop the crying’?”

Eren snickered. “Baby Leo? Yes, but that was years ago babe.”

Jean sighed and slid down in his seat to rest his head on Eren’s shoulder. “That was the first time we’d ever heard you sing. And you were just singing nonsense and Leo started cooing at you and we just let you two sit on the couch and Marco and I kinda passed out on the floor.”

Eren shifted and pulled his hand away to curl his arm around Jean instead. “Why’d ya think of that?”

“We weren’t actually asleep.” Jean whispered. “We were listening. Marco told me later, that it was when he first actually thought to himself ‘Wow, he’s amazing.’ He fell in love with you that day, and I guess… that’s when I did too.”

Eren didn’t reply, and Jean supposed he didn’t really need too. They watched Marco breathe for a while and Jean felt a little ill at how familiar the sight was, the steady rise and fall. The nurse came in, and they left, squeezing their unresponsive lovers’ hand with a soft “Merry Christmas Marco” each. 

Jean was almost asleep in their bed when Eren tangled their legs together. “Do you think he could hear me? Singing, I mean.”

“The doctors say most coma patients can hear.” He murmured back.

“But what do you think?”

Jean opened his eyes and met Eren’s, the space between their faces just big enough for the ghost of another. He shut his eyes again.

“I think he can. Marco always listens to your songs, so why should he stop now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Questions? Polite Criticism? Rude Complaints? Fun Facts you made up?  
> Find me at kearatheshadow.tumblr.com.


	4. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope is a fragile thing.

Part Four: Eren

Eren watches as Armin unpacks the food Mikasa brought, organizing what was going to go where and what was going to be used to make dinner. Limitless amounts of chip bags were stacked on the counter until Eren could barely see Armin at all.

Eren had already finished decorating, and the urge to just _do something_ tugged at his skin. He got up, restless energy and numb mind, and started organizing the clean glasses by size. Armin let him do it, working on his own preparations for Mikasa’s party.

Mikasa came down from getting ready, still fixing her earrings as she went. She looked over Eren’s shoulder at the carefully organized glasses and squeezed his shoulder. “Are you staying tonight?”

Eren shrugs, attempting to seem casual. “Might as well.”

Armin came over to his other side. _Don’t say it._ “What about Jean?”

 _Dammit._ ”What about him?”

“It’s New Years Eve, and he was invited.” Mikasa pointed out softly, fingers coming up to twine through his hair.

It was about a month since Marco was hit, and Jean had gone back to work, throwing himself into it, instead of taking a well deserved vacation. Eren was jealous, since Erwin had very firmly denied him any jobs until after New Years. Eren had started coming in anyway and generally making an ass of himself until Levi threw a file at him and told him to go home. He never did, and Levi started buying him lunch. 

“He’s busy tonight and said to tell you he was sorry he couldn’t make it.” Eren recited, now carefully stacking the glasses in a pyramid. He knew Armin and Mikasa would stop eventually. Or he would tell them everything— whichever came first.

Armin crossed his arms to Eren’s right. “Did you two get in a fight?”

He shifted and began deconstructing his pyramid. “It wasn’t much of a fight. Doesn’t really feel right arguing anymore.”

Mikasa batted his hands away from her kitchenware and pinched his ear to get him to face her, his standoffish approach dissolving her patience and making her concerned. “But you’re upset.”

“How’d you guess? Marco's comatose, of course I'm upset.” Eren snapped, flashing his teeth in a bitter smile. "You can stop pointing out things I already know."

Armin elbowed him in the ribs gently, making him jump. “Don’t be rude, we’re trying to help you.”

Eren deflated, resigned that they would keep insisting. Fighting it just hurt everyone involved and makes him feel guilty for a good two years. He rubs a hand over his face to try and clear a growing headache.

Mikasa tugged him over to the couch, her heels clicking on the wooden floors of her new apartment, and he followed obediently, letting himself be pulled into a giant cuddle pile. He leaned his head on Armin’s shoulder, curling his hand around Mikasa’s.

He started talking before they can ask-- it felt less like an interrogation that way. “It’s been hard,” he mumbled into Armin’s shoulder. “Different. When we were little and it was you guys and me, and everything went to hell, we wouldn’t give up hope, you know? We’d trust each other to make it through but—”

Armin silently brings up his other arm to squeeze his shoulder, not pushing, but comforting. “It’s been so _long_ , and Jean’s starting to believe the worst, and we try not to bring it up, but I can tell and it gets on my nerves because its like he doesn’t trust Marco not to leave us either.”

“How can you tell?” Mikasa asks, bringing her knees up to her chest. 

“He’s moving on I think. With the job, going to the hospital less. Like Marco’s already d-dead.”

“Well have you tried asking him?” Armin asks, not unreasonably. “You don’t know how he copes, he could just be thinking ahead for when Marco does wake up and you have mounds of hospital bills. He could be making it easier by giving you space.”

“Or maybe you should actually talk to him and give him that little push.” Mikasa adds. “You’ve carried us through worse.”

Eren shakes his head, closing his eyes to hide from their words despite their ringing truth. “I really don’t want to fight him now. It’ll be too much for the both of us.” He smiles a little. "We've gone so long without fighting now I think it might be some kind of record." 

Mikasa traces circles on his palm. "You've never been this cautious before." 

He stiffens and nearly pulls away, but knows that if anyone could understand, it would be them. "Too many bad things have happened," he says slowly, watching her finger traces the scars on his knuckles. "I don't want to mess up and lose Jean too."  

His phone starts ringing from his back pocket, hidden in the depths of the cuddle pile. He fishes it out, sighing when he sees that it’s Jean. Armin gives him a nudge and a exasperated roll of his eyes, and Eren answers it, putting it on speaker.

Jeans voice fills the living room, strained silence and wavering syllables. “E-Eren? Eren its Marco—”

“Jean what’s wrong?” Eren sits up and flies off the couch, already thinking of the fastest way to get to the hospital from there. 

He turns the phone off speaker and holds it up to his ear, turning to look at his friends, but Armin is practically pushing him out the door, understanding his urgency. Mikasa shouts “call us!” as he leaves, tripping over his shoes.

Jean sobbing nonsense into his ear and Eren struggles to understand what he’s saying. “— eyes opened, I swear I saw them for a second, I was sitting there and talking and I thought he looked at me I’m—”

“I’m on my way” Eren cuts him off, choking on the sudden burst of cold winter air. “Did you tell a nurse?”

“Yeah they kicked me out to check on him, Eren—”

“I’ll be there soon, I’m heading into the subway. I love you.”

Eren heard him laugh, breathless and warm. “I love you too nerd.”

Eren kept himself from running through the halls, weaving through the throng of people to get to the quieter sector, but broke his rule on the last stretch of hallway, tackling Jean in an hug the moment he got close enough.  They stayed there for a few minutes, just waiting and holding each other.

The door opened and the head nurse slipped out of the room. Jean looked around her, trying to peer into the room, but Eren saw her face--  and dread made his chest tighten until he could barely breathe.

"There is no change," was the first thing she said, preceded by the typical "I'm Sorry." Eren didn’t listen anymore, watching the hope die from Jean face as how the concept of "imagining things was a common occurrence for long term exposure,” was explained to him. 

Jean wanted to back into the room. Eren took him home instead, all held back tears and whispered snippets of dead hope, and it was only when they had settled near the window to watch the sun set that Eren got up and called Mikasa.

He left Jean in the living room, curled up in a blanket nest and he shut himself in the bedroom. The party was just starting apparently, but he heard Mikasa moving further away from the crowd, her silence as she waited for an explanation was laced with concern, and he could picture the worried frown perfectly.

Eren lied down on their bed, holding the phone to his ear as he explained the situation to her. “I wish I could say I was surprised,” he whispered to her when he got to the end. “But I’m really not. It was just a false alarm.”

“False hope, you mean,” she correctly softly.

Eren let the other arm fall across his eyes.“Yeah. That.”

“I’m not surprised either,” she admitted. “You used to hear your mother’s voice.”

“You would wake up from nightmares talking to yours.”

A heartbeat of silence and then: “You two can still come over tonight. Get out of the house.”

“No Mikasa, I don’t think so.” The silence between them grew but Eren somehow still felt comforted just having her on the line. A minute passed before he could breathe right again. "You have a party to host you know."

As if shocked, heard her start walking again, the volume getting louder the closer she got to the party. “I know, but remember what we said ok? Talk to him,” she murmured as she hung up, the unspoken _please stay safe_ echoing after her. 

Eren tossed his phone to the floor carelessly, his mind and body begging him to just lie down, stay in bed. It was an overwhelming contrast to just a few hours before, and after running himself emotionally into the ground, he was just so _done._  The only thing he bothered to do was kick off his shoes.  

When he woke up, Jean was wrapped around him, head tucked underneath his chin.  He had seemingly brought the entire blanket nest with him, a fluffy cocoon in Eren’s arms. Eren could hear the fireworks from outside, and the cheering of party goers from the apartment below them. Each firework lit up the wall opposite their windows, casting strange shadows drained of their color.

“I’m surprised you didn’t stay out there to watch the fireworks.” He mumbled into Jean hair. 

Jean made a noise, tired and pained and frustrated. “Well I’m just _full_ of surprises tonight aren’t I?” 

Eren pulled him into a tighter hug, squeezing his eyes shut against the outside world, and didn’t say anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Questions? Polite Criticism? Rude Complaints? Fun Facts you made up?  
> Find me at kearatheshadow.tumblr.com.


	5. Sweaters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and I were fireworks going off too soon

Part Five: Jean

The first thing Jean notices when he climbs into bed that night is that Marco’s Sweater doesn't smell like him anymore. It was his favorite god-awful sweater, obnoxiously colored with little snowmen on it. Marco had started wearing his sweaters around the middle of November, when the snow first started falling and nothing short of knocking him out could contain his early Christmas cheer.

Jean found it on the first of December, and Eren had caught him with it, only because Eren had been looking for it too. For the rest of the month they had been sleeping with it in between them, wanting to remember what Marco smelled like before the sterile chemicals of the hospital had gotten to him.

They would have two sweaters, but the other one was locked away, bloodied evidence against the drunk driver that had hit him.

Jean holds it to his chest now, wondering if what he had seen -- brown eyes, open, searching--  was real: wondering if it was just him desperate for a holiday miracle. Eren said that he’ll call the hospital the next day and that its probably best if they both stay away for a day or two. It made sense, and the fact that Eren was starting to make sense tells Jean that he's really lost it now. 

He clutches the sweater tighter, trying to feel something other than pain, but only feels exhaustion. 

The fireworks from New Years eventually stop, and so does the party below them, but Jean stays awake, listening to Eren’s heartbeat. He can tell from his breathing that Eren hasn’t fallen back asleep either.

“Jean?” Eren’s voice is so quiet he almost misses it. He replies with a wordless noise, far too comfortable in the crook of Eren’s shoulder to bother with language.

“Why did you go back to work so early?”

Hearing something in Eren’s voice— not quite an accusation, but not too casual either— Jean fights to lift his head, forcing his mind and tongue to work. “Because Marco wouldn’t want us to be completely helpless and invalid without him.”

Eren’s grip tightens and Jean tenses in response, fingers twitching were they rest on his boyfriend's side.  “You act like he’s already dead.”

Jean’s eyes snap open and he pulls his head back to look at him, defensive and wide awake. “When did you get that idea in your thick skull?”

Eren glares back, eyes flashing in the low light. “You didn't deny it.”

“Fuck you!” Jean rolled over and sat on top of Eren, struggling to keep his voice down. It came out as a harsh hiss. “Do you really think I don’t want him to wake up? What do you think he’ll say if we’ve only ever been bumming around the hospital? He’d be so disappointed in us.”

“But you’re acting like you don’t care anymore!” Jean reels back from the accusation like he'd been slapped, and avoids it altogether.  


“You’re a hypocrite,” he hissed. “I know you begged for Erwin to give you hours, don’t give me that crap.”  

Apparently unable to think of a cohesive argument, Eren launches something into Jean’s face, and Jean stops himself from whipping it back at the man under him once he sees what it is. Scratchy snowmen brush against his hands and, feeling suddenly ashamed and slightly ridiculous, shows Eren the sweater.

Eren looks away, and a weight seems to settle over the room. Jean places the sweater on the pillows, absurdly resisting the urge to fold it. Eren’s nose twitches and his hands come up to push at Jean’s stomach. “Get off of me then.”

“No.”

Jean lies down on top of him instead, staring at him from crossed arms, and it slowly clicks in his mind, like the definition of an untranslatable word. Jean never really believed in causes, but he believed in people, and he's believed in Eren, and in Marco coming back to them. Eren believed in himself and what he can do, but he can't fight an illness. He was losing hope, and didn't know how to deal with it. 

Jean didn't quite know how to deal with it either, the events in the hospital sitting uncomfortably in his stomach. “He’ll wake up.” Jean whispered instead, uncrossing his arms to reach up and curl his fingers through Eren's hair. “He’s not going to leave us.”

Eren was still tense, still geared to fight, glaring firmly out the window. “You don’t believe that.”

Jean dogged the accusation again, untangling his hands to reach behind him and pull the blankets up to cover them both.  “Never told a lie, not gonna start now.”

He watched as Eren slowly relaxed, the lateness of the hour, and overall exhaustion coaxing him to rest. Jean adjusted his weight so he wasn't crushing him, and curled his hand around the back of Eren's neck instead, resting his head on his chest. 

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Eren replied, but it was all he said, hands coming up to rest on Jean’s back, mollified for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Questions? Polite Criticism? Rude Complaints? Fun Facts you made up?  
> Find me at kearatheshadow.tumblr.com.


	6. Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lovers of the Light

Part Six: Eren

Eren has always liked color: clothes, decorations, cars, he was even fond of his eyes— one a deep green and the other a pure gold. He liked the colors of the Christmas Tree, fireworks on a hillside and the way candles painted the ones he loved in a warm glow. His favorite memory was when they tried something they found online— splatter painting, covering one wall of their bedroom (…and each other, the floor and the window) entirely in color.

It was all nothing compared to seeing the lights of the hospital reflect in Marco’s eyes.

Marco waking up on the third day of the new year was an explosion, blinding color in the dull winter. There was no false alarm, or false hope— Eren saw Jean falling out of his chair, the slow motion of the hospital kickstarting into a frenzied burst of light.

Marco’s heart monitor picked up, his blurry eyes unfocused and squinting in the harsh artificial glow, and he stared at them, tired confusion written all over his face. Eren was crying, someone was saying “Marco” over and over again, and the nurses came and bustled them out, stern movements and professional smiles.

Jean smile was electric, sharp and pure and crackling with energy, pulling Eren into a hug, kissing him hard. When they were allowed back in the room, Marco’s smile was like the sunset in summer, slow and building up to something bright and familiar.

He feels like singing, he feels like staring into Marco’s eyes until he can draw them from memory, little shots of fire sparking in his chest every time they meet his.

It started with the blurry headlights of a car in the pitch dark of night and ended with the afternoon winter light flooding in from the windows, glinting off three rings and their smiles.

Eren can picture these past few weeks in his head like the view from the top of their building. At three in the morning it’s grey and black, a collage of darkened windows and dirty buildings and grey skies, except for those few scarce patches of light-- square windows, blinking planes overhead and the headlights of cars passing under dim streetlights. Signs of life when there shouldn’t be, small pieces of fractured light, laughter, love, hope in a winter of misery. 

He remembers that hours pass, morning comes, and the grey and black and artificial hope give way for a sunrise of color that throws everything back into a new perspective. Now the shadows are the minority, and everything is so achingly happy it hurts. 

Marco's parents are called, and the Bodt siblings overrun the hospital over the next few days. There are coworkers and well wishers and doctors and family, and Mikasa squeezes his hand, her red scarf vibrant as she lets him know that family can still be found. For all that he's lost, and all the grief they've endured, sometimes he's allowed to love without loosing too. 

There is a certain type of beauty in pain and sadness, yet Eren can’t help but love the Light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why was everything not posted at the same time you ask? I wasn't satisfied with the ending bits because they were rushed over JEM week, and while I should've waited and posted everything all at once for one big chapter to avoid really small ones like this, I didn't and that was my mistake. Lesson learned.
> 
> Either way, while there were seven prompts, "Naughty and Nice" didn't really fit into the theme I created with this universe but there is plenty of really good stuff fulfilling the prompt and the rest of the week floating around by some fantastic authors and artists. Regardless of the tight schedule, I had fun with this, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments? Questions? Polite Criticism? Rude Complaints? Fun Facts you made up?  
> Find me at kearatheshadow.tumblr.com.


End file.
